Rise of Scandinavia considered. 21 1 



quire whether there may not be going on, in the calmest seasons 

 and in the stillest countries, a chronic and almost imperceptible 

 impulsion of land upwards. 



As early as the time of Swedenborg, who wrote in 1715, it 

 was observed that the level of the Baltic and German Oceans 

 was on the decline. About the middle of the last century an 

 animated and long-continued discussion took place in Sweden, 

 first as to the cause of this phenomenon, and then as to its rea- 

 lity. Reliant of Tornea, who had been assured of the fact by 

 his father, an old boatman, and who afterwards witnessed it 

 himself, bequeathed all he had to the Academy of Sciences^ on 

 condition that they should proceed with the investigation : the 

 sum was small, but the bequest answered the purpose. Some 

 of the members of the Academy made marks on exposed cliffs 

 and in sheltered bays, recording the day on which the marks 

 were made, and their then height above the water. The Baltic 

 affords great facility to those who conduct such experiments, as 

 there is no tide, nor any other circumstance to afect its level, 

 except unequal pressure of the atmosphere on its surface and on 

 that of the ocean : this produces a variation which is curiously 

 exemplified at Lake Malar, near Stockholm. As the barometer 

 rises or falls, the Baltic will flow into the lake, or the lake into 

 the Baltic. The variation resulting from the inequality of at- 

 mospheric pressure, however, is trifling. In sheltered spots 

 mosses and lichens grown down to the water''s edge, and thus 

 form a natural register of its level. Upon this line of vegetation 

 marks were fixed, which now stand in many places two feet 

 above the surface of the water. 



In the year 1820-1, Bruncrona visited the old marks, mea- 

 sured the height of each above the line of vegetation, fixed new 

 marks, and made a report to the Academy. With this Report 

 has been published an Appendix by Halestrom, containing an 

 account of measurements made by himself and others along the 

 coast of Bothnia. From these documents it would appear : — 1 . 

 That along the whole coast of the Baltic the water is lower in 

 respect to the land than it used to be. % That the amount of 

 variation is not uniform. Hence it follows, that either the sea 

 and land have both undergone a change of level, or the land on- 



